“I can’t think when you’re far,” he truthfully says. “No amount of space can create distance between us, lovebird.”
We’re two people waiting for the other to spill our guts out. But mine is full of tangled webs and undesirable intestines. My truth isn’t pretty, but it isn’t deep. What he doesn’t get is that my life has never seen distance. I’ve always had people close to me. For a while, having space from everyone sounded like heaven. But now, with Dean, I don’t know if that’s what I want at all. I like people near me, in my space, trying to figure out what’s wrong so they can hold my hand and help me through it. If we were meant to go through life alone, then why are there other people in the world?
I take the earplugs out. Dean concentrates on it.
“What did you put on your bucket list?” I tuck the hoops in mypocket.
Dean doesn’t answer, but his tightened lips do.
“Why didn’t you tell me you talked about me while watching Dirty Dancing?”
Again, no answer.
“Why make me a chocolate smoothie? Why take care of me? Why offer me your tattoos? Why haven’t you talked to any other girl here? Why are your favourite flowers anemones? Why, Dean?” I push harder and harder. He moves further and further away. “Why did you come onLove? Check!?” Taking a resigned breath, “Why are you even here if it isn't for reputation or money?”
One look from him. Deep, resounding,pained. “You know why.”
“I want to hear you say it,” I tell him.
Electric energy pulses with ravenous rage and unfiltered thoughts.
“They asked me to list five items I wanted to do in this lifetime.” The muscles in his throat bulge. “I gave them the one I want in every life.”
“Which was?” My voice breaks.
Dean takes a step forward.
With a look of deep-rooted viridescent fragility. “Wanting Nova Rivera to bemine.”
Whatever complicated variation of confusion keeps rewriting itself in my chest, vanishes into thin air with the single confirmation.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, desperately. “Howlong?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he snaps. “You wouldn’t have wanted me if I told you.”
“That’s not what I asked.” I take a step. “How long, Dean?”
His lips curl with bitterness. “Two years.”
A sharp inhale. “You followed me onto a dating show, Dean.” I say. “There wouldn’t have been a single doubt in my head of you notliking me.”
“Don’t say that,” he scoffs under his breath.
“Say what?”
“That word,” his nostrils flare. “Like. It’s not close to how I feel about you.”
“Then tell me,” my heels brush against his shoes.
He keeps his mouth shut, the edges twitching. Each unsaid word persists in the heated air.
“If you don’t tell me?—”
Dean teleports from miles away to his chest brushing mine with each tense heave.
“From the moment I met you, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of you. At first, I thought it was because you were beautiful, and I hadn’t felt a woman in six years. But the more I saw you with your flowers and bright smiles, giving them to me when I didn’t deserve it, my body became a stranger to itself. Every system, organ, and muscle only works when you’re near. There’s no invisible string tying me to you. Just a flawed man clutching his chest, praying for you to accept his love. My salvation is an arrow aiming in your direction.”
His words are rough. The prickles of a freshly shaved beard against my skin of my thoughts, but his hand is a gentle caress on my cheek. “I wanted to kill him the second your lips touched his cheeks,” his tone switches. Reverting back to unconcealedpain.
